The Dark Frontier A. Decker (i like reading TXT) 📖

“You know, this kind of stuff puts me in mind of the human zoos they used to stage,” he said when he reached the end of the Rider Haggard yarn. “Bringing people from Africa and putting them on show for people’s entertainment. They still do it in some places. There was one at Basel zoo a year or two ago.”

“I’ve heard about them,” Patricia replied. “They sound quite disgusting.”

“Believe me, they are. My mother took me to one in Freiburg when I was a kid. She was fascinated.”

The distaste voiced in the delivery of Frank’s words matched the revulsion in his eyes.

How much sweeter he found it listening to Patricia as she recited from Baudelaire with her enchanting lilt, which transported him at once to the smoke-filled cafes of Montmartre. He looked out for every sign of emotion in her eyes as she recited from Les fleurs du mal. Watched every beguiling movement of her sweet lips as she spoke, listening all the while for them to whisper the cryptic words about her great swan, with his crazy gestures. But the words of that poem never came. And their absence made them all the more enigmatic to Frank.

For the best part of two weeks, they remained encapsulated in this cocoon. Every so often, she would lapse into her own dark, impenetrable reflections, bringing to the surface the prurience she had encouraged in him for the affairs and secrets of others. And he would contemplate the possible reasons she might have for avoiding that particular poem. Was it too painful for her, he wondered. Did it have something to do with the mysterious Léandre, who had died in Spain?

But the honeymoon was too sweet and too precious to be sacrificed to any unkind histories that may have been lurking in the shadows they had left behind. And far too brittle. So, with the dedication that might be expected of a restorer attempting to preserve the beauty of an Old Master from the Early Renaissance, they handled every moment with devotional care, working silently to keep the bonds intact.

Between days, tucked into the narrow warmth of their bedclothes, a special kind of circumspection was called for. They were encouraged in this by the cold, verecund board down the middle of the bed that was so typical of bedsteads in the German-speaking world – built to keep its occupants apart. But the makers had not reckoned on the slenderness of Patricia. And defiantly they slotted together in their snug rapture, flesh upon flesh, her breasts exquisitely modest against his clumsily worn body, and her eyes more beautiful each night as the bruising became friendlier and lent a new sensuality to their expression.

It must have been about two weeks after arriving in Davos when this idyllic veneer finally cracked, when even his most tenacious efforts to avoid the arrogant backslapping SS types that filled the pavements and restaurants fell miserably short. Frank and Patricia were strolling through the village towards the Parsenn station after lunch, having avoided the rush of skiers on their way to the mountain top. The streets appeared to be enjoying the peace. It was still a little overcast and slightly chillier than usual for the time of day. Patricia walked closer to him that afternoon, one arm wrapped snugly around his – whether she was feeling more affectionate or simply colder, he was unsure.

He enjoyed the closeness, but at the same time it troubled him the way the tightening of her grip on his arm coincided with the sound of a brass band striking up somewhere out of sight. The significance of the music was not immediately obvious. It was only when Patricia’s grip on his arm grew tighter still that its familiarity became plain to him. But no sooner had he registered the swagger of his country’s national anthem than this celebration of arrogance gave way to the even more sinister theme of the hymn to Horst Wessel.

The overbearing presumption of this insult on the tranquil hospitality that had been theirs for the last two weeks filled him with a sense of nausea. And Patricia plainly more so. But his feelings at once came into conflict with a morbid curiosity. And when she steered him away from the noise, he resisted.

“Come on,” she pleaded. “We don’t want to have anything to do with that.”

“It was you who encouraged me to be inquisitive,” he observed. So, against Patricia’s better judgement, they moved in the direction of the arrogance that masqueraded as music. If only he had respected her wishes.

The scene that greeted them when they turned the corner into the square was already enough to sicken the heart: banners flying their emblems of evil were held erect like ugly pylons in the snow by mostly young, earnest-faced men, some in the shameless colours of party uniform and others in civvies so normal they chafed at the credulous innocence that still clung stubbornly to the more comfortable corners of Frank’s spirit. Grouped around them stood a group of men in long black coats conveying the impression of sinister intent – like carrion crows gathered around in the hope there might be some pickings on offer. The scene put Frank in mind of his mother’s nurse and her vivid description of the thugs who killed her dog.

But the band, the flag-bearers and the crows were not alone. They were simply the more conspicuous extras among a gathering he found disturbingly respectable in appearance: a few women, who were dressed up in their expensive furs, but mostly men fumigating the area with their thick cigar smoke. They were all absorbing a message from the mean pinched mouth of a man so strikingly ordinary that Frank wondered what it could be that made this man so presumptuous as to believe he had anything worth saying to so many people. His words were nothing less than a diatribe of hatred. A ranting paranoid indictment of some international